Linux Archives

How to Set Up an Interactive SSH Honeypot on CentOS 8.

Posted on November 22, 2019 - November 23, 2019 by nxnjz

Introduction

A honeypot is a piece of software or a system that is designed to detect and monitor malicious activity, and deflect attackers from your actual production services and systems. This article will explain the deployment of an interactive SSH honeypot using Cowrie, a free and open-source SSH honeypot. It can log brute force connection attempts and any commands executed by attackers. Additionally, it employs a ‘fake’, isolated filesystem for better interaction and deception. A CentOS 8 machine is used for this guide.

Requirements

A CentOS 8 system.
Access to the root user or any user with sudo privileges.

NOTE: This guide assumes SELinux is set to either permissive or disabled.

If using a sudo user, use a root shell for the duration of this setup:

sudo -s

Step 1: Pre-Installation Steps

Update your system and install the software packages which are required for this setup:

dnf update -y
dnf install -y python3 python3-virtualenv python3-pip git firewalld

Create a cowrie user account:

useradd cowrie

Ensure the firewall daemon is enabled and running:

systemctl enable --now firewalld.service

Temporarily allow traffic to port 2222. This port will be initially used to access the honeypot.

firewall-cmd --add-port 2222/tcp

Step 2: Installing Cowrie SSH Honeypot

Switch to the cowrie user:

su - cowrie

Clone the Cowrie Github repository:

git clone https://github.com/cowrie/cowrie.git

A Python virtual environment provides a stable and isolated environment where we can have the specific Python modules and their versions that are required by the honeypot. Change into the cowrie directory then initialize a Python virtual env:

cd cowrie
virtualenv-3 --python=/usr/bin/python3 cowrie-venv

Enter it:

. cowrie-venv/bin/activate

Install the required Python modules:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Step 3: Initial Testing

At this point you should be able to run the honeypot and test things out before proceeding.

Start Cowrie:

bin/cowrie start

shows starting cowrie honeypot and listening port

From your local machine, try logging into the honeypot as root. Enter any random password but not toor, 123456, or anything containing honeypot.

ssh root@ip_address -p 2222

connecting to ssh honeypot and interacting

As you can see, we are able to authenticate and run commands as if this were a normal SSH session. Once you’re satisfied with testing, log out of the honeypot and stop Cowrie:

bin/cowrie stop

Now let’s make things more permanent.

Step 4: Creating a Systemd Service

Using a Systemd service to manage the honeypot is recommended for a few reasons:

Start, stop and check the status of the honeypot with single commands.
Restart the honeypot automatically on boot and on failure.
Consistency with other system services.

While still logged in as cowrie , open bin/cowrie with your text editor:

cd /home/cowrie/cowrie/
vim bin/cowrie

Find the following lines:

#COWRIE_VIRTUAL_ENV=my-env
DAEMONIZE=""

And change them to the following (don’t forget to remove the ‘#’):

COWRIE_VIRTUAL_ENV=cowrie-venv
DAEMONIZE="-n"

Save your changes and then exit back to your root shell:

exit

Create a new Systemd unit file with your text editor:

vim /etc/systemd/system/cowrie-honeypot.service

Enter the following:

[Unit]
Description=Interactive SSH Honeypot
Wants=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
User=cowrie
Group=cowrie
ExecStart=/home/cowrie/cowrie/bin/cowrie start
Restart=on-failure
RestartSec=5
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and exit, then start the service:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl start cowrie-honeypot.service

You can check if it is running with:

systemctl status cowrie-honeypot.service

If you want the honeypot to start automatically after boot, execute:

systemctl enable cowrie-honeypot.service

Step 5: Using TCP port 22 for the honeypot

Your honeypot will receive significantly more connections if it uses port 22, which is the default SSH port. As Cowrie uses port 2222 by default, you can forward connections on that port to port 22. But first, change the port used by the real SSH server and configure the firewall accordingly.

Allow traffic to port 222:

firewall-cmd --add-port 222/tcp --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

Make sure this change took effect. The following command should output 222/tcp :

firewall-cmd --list-ports

Open the OpenSSH daemon configuration file:

vim /etc/ssh/sshd_config

Find the line:

#Port 22

Change it to:

Port 222

Save the change and restart the SSH server:

systemctl restart sshd.service

Check and make sure that it is now listening on port 222:

ss -lntp

openssh changed listening port

Exit your SSH session and reconnect to port 222 instead. If not logged in as root, start a root shell:

sudo -s

Remove the SSH service (which allows traffic to port 22/tcp) from firewalld as it is now running on a different port:

firewall-cmd --remove-service ssh --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

Enable IP masquerading and add a rule to forward traffic on port 22 to port 2222:

firewall-cmd --add-masquerade --permanent
firewall-cmd --add-forward-port=port=22:proto=tcp:toport=2222 --permanent
firewall-cmd --reload

That’s it. The honeypot is now accessible on the default SSH port.

Step 6: Configuring SSH Honeypot Users

While legitimate users and their passwords are stored in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow, fake SSH users are configured in etc/userdb.txt in the cowrie directory. You can easily configure allowed/disallowed user/password combinations by adding entries to that file.

The following format is used:

[username]:x:[password]

Any username not explicitely listed will not be able to authenticate.
You can use arbitrary usernames, they do not have to be real user accounts on your system.
You can have more than one rule per username.
Prepend the ‘!’ character to a password to explicitely blacklist it.
Use the ‘*’ character as a password to allow all passwords.
Use /BRE/ syntax to match passwords based on regular expressions.

Consider the following example:

root:x:!toor
root:x:!/admin/
root:x:*
admin:x:admin

With the above entries, the root user will be allowed to authenticate with any password, except toor and any password containing admin. The admin user will only be allowed be login with the password admin.

The default is as follows:

root:x:!root
root:x:!123456
root:x:!/honeypot/i
root:x:*
tomcat:x:*
oracle:x:*

To change the default, start by creating a file in /home/cowrie/cowrie/etc/ named userdb.txt:

vim /home/cowrie/cowrie/etc/userdb.txt

Populate this file according to your needs, then give ownership to the cowrie user and group:

chown cowrie:cowrie /home/cowrie/cowrie/etc/userdb.txt

Honeypot Logs

Connection attempts, shell activity and other details are logged to /home/cowrie/cowrie/var/log/cowrie. You may use a logging server to store and display honeypot logs instead, but that is beyond the scope of this article. The collected data from the honeypot can be used to populate IP blacklists, to monitor threats, and for research purposes.

More Info

How to setup a simple proxy server with tinyproxy (Debian 10 Buster)

Posted on October 7, 2019 - October 8, 2019 by nxnjz

Introduction

Tinyproxy is a lightweight HTTP/HTTPS proxy written in C. It is highly configurable and supports URL-based and domain-based filtering, custom headers and reverse proxying. This article will guide you through the compilation of Tinyproxy from source and its configuration in forward proxy mode.

Prerequisites

A newly deployed Debian 10 instance with a public IP address.
Access to a root shell via SSH or console.
The $EDITOR environment variable should be set.

If you’re using a sudo user, obtain a root shell with sudo -s.

Installation

Step 1: Install dependencies

Start by updating your system:

apt update
apt upgrade -y
reboot

Install the packages required for fetching and building tinyproxy:

apt install -y git automake build-essential asciidoc xsltproc

Step 2: Install tinyproxy

Download tinyproxy from its github repository:

cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.git

Generate the GNU configure script:

cd tinyproxy
./autogen.sh

Build and Install:

./configure
make
make install
cd ..
rm tinyproxy/ -r

Tinyproxy drops root privileges after binding to the network port. Create a user which will be used by tinyproxy:

useradd -M -U -s /bin/false tinyproxy

This command creates a user named tinyproxy without a home directory and with /bin/false as the login shell to disable login.

Create the file to be used for logging and give ownership to the tinyproxy user:

mkdir -p /usr/local/var/log/tinyproxy
touch /usr/local/var/log/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.log
chown tinyproxy:root /usr/local/var/log/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.log

Step 3: Initial Proxy Configuration

Rename the default config file and create a new one:

mv /usr/local/etc/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.conf /usr/local/etc/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.conf.orig
$EDITOR /usr/local/etc/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.conf

And input the following:

##User/Group to use after dropping root
User tinyproxy
Group tinyproxy

##Port and address to bind to
Port 8888
Bind 0.0.0.0

##File locations
DefaultErrorFile "/usr/local/share/tinyproxy/default.html"
StatFile "/usr/local/share/tinyproxy/stats.html"
LogFile "/usr/local/var/log/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.log"
LogLevel Info
PidFile "/var/run/tinyproxy.pid"

##Authentication
BasicAuth your_username your_secure_password

##HTTP Headers
ViaProxyName "server-hostname"
DisableViaHeader No

##Threading
StartServers 5
MinSpareServers 5
MaxSpareServers 10 
MaxRequestsPerChild 0

##Connection
Timeout 600
MaxClients 100

(Replace your_username, your_secure_password and server_hostname with your own values).

This configuration is a sensible starting point for a basic HTTP/HTTPS proxy. It instructs tinyproxy to operate as a forward proxy with password authentication, on port 8888 on your public interface, and to drop to lower user privileges after the initial execution. It also specifies the location of various files and the maximum number of concurrent connections allowed, among other parameters.

Test your configuration by executing : /usr/local/bin/tinyproxy -c '/usr/local/etc/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.conf' followed by ss -lntp | grep tinyproxy. If tinyproxy was able to start and bind, the output of the latter command should be something like:

LISTEN    0         128                0.0.0.0:8888             0.0.0.0:*        users:(("tinyproxy",pid=27638,fd=0),("tinyproxy",pid=27637,fd=0),("tinyproxy",pid=27636,fd=0),("tinyproxy",pid=27635,fd=0),("tinyproxy",pid=27634,fd=0),("tinyproxy",pid=27633,fd=0))
LISTEN    0         128                   [::]:8888                [::]:*        users:(("tinyproxy",pid=27638,fd=1),("tinyproxy",pid=27637,fd=1),("tinyproxy",pid=27636,fd=1),("tinyproxy",pid=27635,fd=1),("tinyproxy",pid=27634,fd=1),("tinyproxy",pid=27633,fd=1))

And try sending a connection through the proxy:

curl --proxy http://127.0.0.1:8888 --proxy-user your_username https://httpbin.org/ip

Curl will prompt you for the proxy password. If the connection succeeds, your server’s IP should be returned in the response.

Step 4: Service File

Kill any tinyproxy processes before proceeding:

pkill -e tinyproxy

We will wrap the tinyproxy executable in a systemd unit file for easy service management abilities, such as starting, stopping, autostarting at boot, etc. Use the following command to create a service file:

$EDITOR /etc/systemd/system/tinyproxy.service

And paste the following:

[Unit]
Description=Tinyproxy daemon
Requires=network.target
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/var/run/tinyproxy.pid
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/tinyproxy -c '/usr/local/etc/tinyproxy/tinyproxy.conf'
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and exit, then reload the systemd configuration:

systemctl daemon-reload

You can now use systemctl to start, stop and restart tinyproxy as follows:

systemctl start tinyproxy
systemctl stop tinyproxy
systemctl restart tinyproxy

If tinyproxy should be started automatically, execute the command:

systemctl enable tinyproxy.service

Step 5: Authentication configuration (optional)

We configured the proxy to use password authentication. If you’d like to whitelist certain IPs instead, comment the BasicAuth line and whitelist the IP addresses that should be allowed to connect using the following syntax:

Allow IP_ADDR[/xx]

For example:

[...]

##Authentication
#BasicAuth your_username your_secure_password
Allow 127.0.0.1
Allow 192.168.0.0/24
Allow 203.0.113.113
ViaProxyName "server_hostname"

[...]

NOTE: By whitelisting/blacklisting any host or network with Allow/Deny, all other hosts are denied access. If no Allow or Deny keywords are present, all hosts are allowed to connect.

The configuration shown here would allow connections from 127.0.0.1 (i.e. the loopback interface), from the whole /24 range of the local 192.168.0.x private network, and from the remote host with IP address 203.0.113.113/

Restart the tinyproxy daemon whenever you make changes to the configuration:

systemctl restart tinyproxy.service

More Info

tinyproxy(8) Manual
tinyproxy.conf(5) Manual

How to Install qdPM 9.1 on Debian 10 LEMP

Posted on September 30, 2019 - November 21, 2019 by nxnjz

Introduction

qdPM is a free and open-source web application for project management. It is designed for small teams working on multiple projects and allows easy management of tasks and roles. qdPM is fully configurable and features a customer-facing ticket system that is integrated into task management. This guide will help you through the complete installation and configuration of qdPM 9.1 on a Debian 10 system running Nginx.

Prerequisites

A fresh Debian 10 instance.
Root access to your server
Optionally, a domain name with an A record pointing to your IP address (required for HTTPS setup.)

NOTE: pm.example.com should be replaced with your public IP address or domain name.

Installation

Step 1: Installing PHP, Nginx and MariaDB.

qdPM requires a web server with PHP processing and a MySQL database. We will install and setup Nginx, PHP-FPM, and MariaDB to fulfill those requirements.

Update your system and software:

apt update
apt upgrade -y

Install Nginx, PHP, MariaDB, and other required packages:

apt install -y nginx php-fpm php-mysql php-xml mariadb-server unzip wget

And make sure the Nginx, PHP-FPM and MariaDB services are enabled and running:

systemctl enable --now nginx.service mariadb.service php7.3-fpm.service

Step 2: Database Setup.

We’ll create a database and a corresponding user dedicated to qdPM. But first, secure your MySQL installation with the following script:

mysql_secure_installation

During the process, answer questions as shown below:

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Press :key_enter:
Set root password? [Y/n]: y
New password: <your-secure-password>
Re-enter new password: <your-secure-password>
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: y

Now let’s setup the database and user:

mysql -u root -p

Enter the MariaDB root password you set earlier to log in. In the MySQL cli, use the following commands to create a database and user:

CREATE DATABASE qdpm_db default charset utf8;
CREATE USER 'qdpm_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPasswordHere';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON qdpm_db.* TO 'qdpm_user'@'localhost';
EXIT;

Step 3: Download qdPM.

Use the following command to download qdPM 9.1:

wget https://netix.dl.sourceforge.net/project/qdpm/qdPM_9.1.zip

Unzip to the webroot:

unzip -d /var/www/html/qdpm qdPM_9.1.zip
rm qdPM_9.1.zip

And give ownership of the qdpm directory to the Nginx process owner:

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/qdpm/

Step 4: Nginx configuration.

We’ll now configure Nginx. Create a server block file in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ with a text editor of your choice. For example:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/qdpm80.conf

Add the following lines (while replacing pm.example.com with your own domain name or IP address).

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name pm.example.com;
    root /var/www/html/qdpm;
    index index.php;

    location / {
        try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
    }

    location ~* \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $realpath_root;
    }

    error_log /var/log/nginx/qdpm_error.log;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/qdpm_access.log;
}

We now need to enable it by creating a symbolic link in the ‘sites-enabled’ directory, and reload the Nginx service to apply the new configuration:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/qdpm80.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
systemctl reload nginx.service

Your qdPM instance should be accessible at http://pm.example.com/. Proceed to step 5 if you want to configure HTTPS, or skip to step 6 to finalize the installation process.

Step 5a: HTTPS configuration (Optional but highly recommended).

Please note that this step will not work with an IP address, a domain name is required. Start by installing certbot, a tool for obtaining an SSL certificate for your domain name from Let’s Encrypt:

apt install -y certbot 
certbot certonly --webroot --agree-tos -m youremail@domain.tld -d pm.example.com

You’ll be prompted to input the webroot location for your domain, enter /var/www/html/qdpm. Certbot will verify ownership of your domain and will issue an SSL certificate which will be used to setup HTTPS. Next, create another server block file:

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/qdpm443.conf

And add these lines:

server {
    listen 443;
    listen [::]:443;
    server_name pm.example.com;
    root /var/www/html/qdpm;
    index index.php;

    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/pm.example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/pm.example.com/privkey.pem;

    location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
    }

   location ~* \.php$ {
       fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock;
       include fastcgi_params;
       fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
       fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $realpath_root;
    }

    error_log /var/log/nginx/qdpm_error.log;
    access_log /var/log/nginx/qdpm_access.log;

}

Enable this configuration file and reload the Nginx service:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/qdpm443.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
systemctl reload nginx.service

Step 5b: HTTP to HTTPS redirection (optional)

If you’d like to redirect all incoming HTTP traffic to HTTPS, open /etc/nginx/sites-available/qdpm80.conf in a text editor and add the following line after the server_name directive:

 return 301 https://pm.example.com$request_uri;

And reload the Nginx service once again:

systemctl reload nginx.service

Step 6: Web Installer

Navigate to http://pm.example.com/ or https://pm.example.com/. You should get see the message Environment checked. No errors found. You can install qdPM.. Click Database Config and fill in the form as follows:

Database host: localhost
Database port: Leave blank.
Database name: qdpm_db
DB username: qdpm_user
DB password: Enter the password you chose during user creation in step 2.

Now click “Install Database” and enter your email and password to create the default administrator account.

Finally, wait for the web installer to finish and login via SSH and remove the install directory:

rm /var/www/html/qdpm/install/ -rf

Your qdPM installation is now complete.

How to Install qdPM 9.1 on CentOS 7.

Posted on September 24, 2019 - October 3, 2019 by nxnjz

Introduction

qdPM is a free and open-source web application for project management. It is designed for small teams working on multiple projects and allows easy management of tasks and roles. qdPM is fully configurable and features a customer-facing ticket system that is integrated into task management. This guide will walk you through the complete installation and configuration of qdPM 9.1 on CentOS 7 with SELinux in enforcing mode.

Requirements

A fresh CentOS 7 system.
Root access to your server.
Optionally, a domain name with an A record pointing to your IP address (required for HTTPS.)

NOTE: pm.example.com should be replaced with the public IP address or domain name of your server.

Installation

Step 1: Installing PHP, Apache and MariaDB.

qdPM requires a web server with PHP processing and a MySQL database. We will install and setup Apache and MariaDB to fulfill those requirements.

Update your system and software:

yum update -y
reboot

After the reboot, login again to install Apache, PHP, MariaDB, and other packages:

yum install -y httpd php php-common php-pdo php-mysql php-xml mariadb-server unzip wget

And make sure the Apache and MariaDB services are enabled and running:

systemctl enable --now httpd.service mariadb.service

If SELinux is enforcing (check with getenforce), install the corresponding management utilities:

yum install -y policycoreutils-python

Step 2: Database Setup.

We’ll create a database and a corresponding user dedicated to qdPM. But first, secure your MySQL installation with the following script:

mysql_secure_installation

During the process, answer questions as shown below:

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Press :key_enter:
Set root password? [Y/n]: y
New password: <your-secure-password>
Re-enter new password: <your-secure-password>
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: y

Now let’s setup the database and user:

mysql -u root -p

Enter the MariaDB root password you set earlier to log in. In the MySQL cli, use the following commands to create a database and user:

CREATE DATABASE qdpm_db default charset utf8;
CREATE USER 'qdpm_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPasswordHere';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON qdpm_db.* TO 'qdpm_user'@'localhost';
EXIT;

Step 3: Download qdPM.

Use the following command to download qdPM 9.1:

wget https://netix.dl.sourceforge.net/project/qdpm/qdPM_9.1.zip

Unzip to the webroot:

unzip -d /var/www/html/qdpm qdPM_9.1.zip
rm qdPM_9.1.zip

And give ownership of the qdpm directory to the Apache user:

chown -R apache:apache /var/www/html/qdpm

Step 4: HTTPD configuration.

We’ll now configure Apache. Create a virtual host file in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ with a text editor of your choice. For example:

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/qdpm80.conf

Add the following lines (while replacing pm.example.com with your own domain name or IP address).

<VirtualHost *:80>

 DocumentRoot /var/www/html/qdpm
 ServerName pm.example.com

 <Directory /var/www/html/qdpm>
   Options FollowSymLinks
   AllowOverride All
 </Directory>

 ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/qdpm-error.log
 CustomLog /var/log/httpd/qdpm-access.log common

</VirtualHost>

Reload the httpd service to apply the new configuration:

systemctl reload httpd.service

And enable traffic to port 80:

 firewall-cmd --add-service http --permanent
 firewall-cmd --reload

Your qdPM instance should be accessible at http://pm.example.com/. Proceed to step 5 if you want to configure HTTPS, or skip to step 6 to finalize the installation process.

Step 5a: HTTPS configuration (Optional, highly recommended).

Please note that this step will not work with an IP address, a domain name is required. Start by installing certbot and the SSL module for Apache, followed by obtaining an SSL certificate for your domain name from Let’s Encrypt, using the certbot tool:

yum install -y certbot mod_ssl
certbot certonly --webroot --agree-tos -m youremail@domain.tld -d pm.example.com

You’ll be prompted to input the webroot location for your domain, enter /var/www/html/qdpm. Certbot will verify ownership of your domain and will issue an SSL certificate which we will use to setup HTTPS. Next, create another virtual host file:

nano /etc/httpd/conf.d/qdpm443.conf

And add these lines:

<VirtualHost *:443>

  DocumentRoot /var/www/html/qdpm
  ServerName pm.example.com

  SSLEngine on
  SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/pm.example.com/fullchain.pem
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/pm.example.com/privkey.pem
  SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
  SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA
  SSLHonorCipherOrder on
  SSLCompression off
  SSLOptions +StrictRequire

  <Directory /var/www/html/qdpm>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>

  ErrorLog /var/log/httpd/qdpm-error.log
  CustomLog /var/log/httpd/qdpm-access.log common

</VirtualHost>

Reload the Apache service:

systemctl reload httpd.service

And allow HTTPS traffic through the firewall:

 firewall-cmd --add-service https --permanent
 firewall-cmd --reload

Step 5b: HTTP to HTTPS redirection

If you’d like to redirect all incoming HTTP traffic to HTTPS, open /etc/httpd/conf.d/qdpm80.conf in a text editor and add the following lines after the ServerName directive:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =pm.example.com
RewriteRule ^ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [END,QSA,R=permanent]

And reload the Apache service once again:

systemctl reload httpd.service

Step 6: SELinux

If SELinux is permissive/disabled and you do not intend on enabling it later, you can skip this step.

qdPM requires write access to the core directory. To allow this access, set the “httpd_sys_rw_content_t” context on core and its children:

semanage fcontext -a -t httpd_sys_rw_content_t "/var/www/html/qdpm/core(/.*)?"
restorecon -Rv /var/www/html/qdpm/

Step 7: Web Installer

Database host: localhost
Database port: Leave blank.
Database name: qdpm_db
DB username: qdpm_user
DB password: Enter the password you chose during user creation in step 2.

Now click “Install Database” and enter your email and password to create the default administrator account.

Finally, wait for the web installer to finish, then login via SSH and remove the `install’ directory:

rm /var/www/html/qdpm/install/ -rf

Your qdPM installation is now complete.

How to Install SuiteCRM on Debian 10 Buster

Posted on September 23, 2019 - May 1, 2020 by nxnjz

SuiteCRM is a free and open source alternative to the popular customer relationship management system SugarCRM. It became popular when SugarCRM decided to stop development of its community edition, on which SuiteCRM is based. This guide will explain the installation of SuiteCRM on a Debian 10 system.

Prerequisites

A fresh Debian 10 system.
Root SSH or console access.
A domain name pointing to the server’s IP address.

NOTE: All occurences of crm.example.net should be replaced with your own domain name.

Step 1: update and install required software.

apt update 
apt upgrade -y

SuiteCRM is written in PHP, and can run on Apache2, so you will need to install the Apache web server, PHP itself, PHP modules, and MariaDB.

apt install -y apache2 mariadb-server mariadb-client php php-common php-zip php-mysql php-gd php-curl php-imap php-mbstring php-xml php-json libapache2-mod-php unzip libpcre3

Step 3: MariaDB setup.

Before creating a database, tighten your MariaDB security by running the mysql_secure_installation script:

mysql_secure_installation

Answer all of the questions as shown below and make sure you choose a strong password for the root user:

Enter current password for root: Press <enter>
Set root password? [Y/n] y
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Once the script exits, log into the MySQL shell with the following command:

mysql -u root -p

Enter your root password you chose earlier, then the following to create a database for SuiteCRM:

MariadDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE suitecrm;

Create a database user with the following command:

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'suitecrm'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPasswordHere';

Grant privileges to the database:

MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON suitecrm.* TO 'suitecrm'@'localhost';

Exit from the MySQL shell:

MariaDB [(none)]> \q

Step 4: Download SuiteCRM.

First, copy the download link for the latest stable version of SuiteCRM from their official download page, and download it as follows (use the latest URL instead):

wget -O suitecrm.zip https://suitecrm.com/files/162/SuiteCRM-7.11/448/SuiteCRM-7.11.6.zip
unzip suitecrm.zip
rm suitecrm.zip

Next, move the extracted directory to the web root:

mv SuiteCRM* /var/www/html/suitecrm

Next, set correct ownership and permissions:

cd /var/www/html/suitecrm
chown -R www-data:www-data .
chmod -R 755 .
chmod -R 775 cache custom modules themes data upload
chmod 775 config_override.php 2> /dev/null

Step 5: PHP configuration.

Using a text editor of your choice, open /etc/php/7.3/apache2/php.ini for editing and make changes according to the following values:

memory_limit = 256M
post_max_size = 64M
upload_max_filesize = 64M

Step 6: Configure Apache for SuiteCRM.

Create an Apache virtual host configuration file for SuiteCRM using a text editor of your choice. For example:

vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/suitecrm80.conf

Add the following lines:

<VirtualHost *:80>

 DocumentRoot /var/www/html/suitecrm
 ServerName crm.example.net

 <Directory /var/www/html/suitecrm>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
 </Directory>

 ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/suitecrm-error.log
 CustomLog /var/log/apache2/suitecrm-access.log common

</VirtualHost>

Then save and close the file. Disable the default site and enable the newly created one:

a2ensite suitecrm80.conf
a2dissite 000-default.conf

Finally, reload Apache:

systemctl reload apache2

Step 7: HTTPS configuration (optional, highly recommended)

Install certbot, which we will use to obtain a free SSL certificate:

apt install -y certbot

Temporarily stop the Apache service:

systemctl stop apache2.service

Obtain a certificate for your domain:

certbot certonly --standalone --agree-tos -m youremail@domain.tld -d crm.example.net

Restart Apache:

systemctl start apache2.service

To setup redirection from HTTP to HTTPS, open the file /etc/apache2/sites-available/suitecrm80.conf in a text editor and add the following lines before the closing virtual host tag (</VirtualHost>)

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =crm.example.net
RewriteRule ^ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [END,QSA,R=permanent]

Then enable the apache rewrite and ssl modules:

a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod ssl

We’ll now create the necessary configuration for HTTPS, paste the following in /etc/apache2/sites-available/suitecrm443.conf:

<VirtualHost *:443> 

  DocumentRoot /var/www/html/suitecrm
  ServerName crm.example.net

  SSLEngine on
  SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/crm.example.net/fullchain.pem
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/crm.example.net/privkey.pem
  SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
  SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA
  SSLHonorCipherOrder on
  SSLCompression off
  SSLOptions +StrictRequire

  <Directory /var/www/html/suitecrm>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>

  ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/suitecrm-error.log
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/suitecrm-access.log common

</VirtualHost>

Then enable it and restart the apache service:

a2ensite suitecrm443.conf
systemctl restart apache2.service

Step 8: Web Installer

Open your web browser and navigate to crm.example.net/install.php to finalize the installation process. Follow the steps below:

1. You will first have to read and accept the license, terms and conditions, then click “Next”.

2. SuiteCRM will check your environment, make sure all tests show “OK” then proceed to the next step.

3. Fill in the form as shown below:

Specify Database Type: MySQL.
Database Name: suitecrm.
Host Name: localhost.
User: suitecrm.
Password: Enter the password you chose during MySQL user creation in step 3.
SuiteCRM Database User: Same as Admin User.
SuiteCRM Application Admin Name: Username of your choice.
SuiteCRM Admin User Password: Strong password of your choice.
URL of SuiteCRM Instance: http://crm.example.net or https://crm.example.net if you configured HTTPS.
Email Address: A valid email address for the site administrator.

Modify the remaining settings if needed.

Step 9: Crontab

We need to setup a cron job in order to run SuiteCRM schedulers, use this command:

crontab -e -u www-data

And add the following line to the bottom:

*    *    *    *    *     cd /var/www/html/suitecrm; php -f cron.php > /dev/null 2>&1

Your SuiteCRM installation is now complete.

How to Install VtigerCRM on Debian 10 Buster

Posted on September 22, 2019 - September 23, 2019 by nxnjz

Vtiger CRM is a popular Customer Relationship Management web application which can help enterprises grow sales, deliver customer service, and increase profits. This article will guide you through the installation of Vtiger open source edition on a Debian 10 system with the Apache web server, MariaDB, and PHP.

Prerequisites

A newly deployed Debian 10 instance (4GB+ of memory recommended)
Root access to your server, via SSH or console.
A domain name pointing to your Vultr IP address. crm.example.net will be used as an example.

Installation

Step 1: Update the system.

First, update your system:

apt update
apt upgrade -y

Once that is done, reboot and login again:

reboot

Step 2: Setup a swap file (optional)

If your system has less than 4GB of memory, you can setup a virtual memory file to potentially improve performance. The following commands will create a 4GB swap file, instruct the system to use it as swap space, and create a corresponding entry in /etc/fstab for automatic mounting at boot.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1k count=4M
chmod 0600 /swapfile
mkswap /swapfile
swapon /swapfile
echo "/swapfile swap swap defaults 0 0" | tee -a /etc/fstab

Step 3: Install Apache, PHP and MariaDB.

Use the following command to install the needed packages and tools:

apt install -y apache2 libapache2-mod-php mariadb-server mariadb-client php-imap php-curl php-xml php php-common php-mysql unzip

Once the installation is complete, make sure that the Apache and MariaDB services are enabled and running:

systemctl enable --now apache2.service mariadb.service

Step 4: Configure PHP.

Using a text editor of your choice, open the file /etc/php/7.3/apache2/php.ini and make the following changes:

memory_limit = 512M
max_execution_time = 240
error_reporting = E_WARNING & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT
display_errors = On
log_errors = Off

Step 5: Setup MariaDB.

We’ll start by securing our MariaDB installation using the command:

mysql_secure_installation

Answer all of the questions as shown below and be sure to choose a strong password for the root user:

Enter current password for root: Press :key_enter:
Set root password? [Y/n] y
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

We’ll now create a database and a MariaDB user, both of which will be dedicated to the Vtiger web application. Login to the MySQL CLI (mysql -u root -p) and use the following commands:

CREATE DATABASE vtigercrm;
CREATE USER 'vtigercrm'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPasswordHere';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON vtigercrm.* TO 'vtigercrm'@'localhost';
QUIT;

Next, open the file /etc/mysql/my.cnf in a text editor and add the following lines:

[mysqld]
sql_mode = ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION

Save the changes and restart MariaDB:

systemctl restart mariadb.service

Step 6: Download Vtiger CRM:

Go to the Vtiger download page and click “Download Open Source”, then copy the download link for the latest stable TAR.GZ version, and download it on your server:

cd /tmp
wget -O vtiger.tgz DOWNLOAD_LINK

For example:

wget -O vtiger.tgz https://sourceforge.net/projects/vtigercrm/files/vtiger%20CRM%207.1.0/Core%20Product/vtigercrm7.1.0.tar.gz/

Go back to the download page and copy the download link for any corresponding hotfix package, and download it as well:

wget -O hotfix.zip https://sourceforge.net/projects/vtigercrm/files/vtiger%20CRM%207.1.0/Core%20Product/Hotfixes/vtigercrm7.1.0-hotfix2.zip/download

Now unpack and move the directory to the web root:

tar -xzf vtiger.tgz
rm vtiger.tgz
mv vtigercrm/ /var/www/

Apply the hotfix:

unzip -o -f -d /var/www/vtigercrm hotfix.zip
rm hotfix.zip

Since write permissions are needed, we’ll give the apache process user ownership of the directory:

chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/vtigercrm

Due do what appears to be a minor bug in the open source version of Vtiger, it will incorrectly report the PHP error_reporting directive as NOT RECOMMENDED. To resolve this, open the file /var/www/vtigercrm/modules/Install/views/Index.php in a text editor such as vim or nano, and find the following line (32):

version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '5.5.0') <= 0 ? error_reporting(E_ERROR & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED) : error_reporting(E_ERROR & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT);

Replace it with:

version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '5.5.0') <= 0 ? error_reporting(E_ERROR & ~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED) : error_reporting(~E_NOTICE & ~E_DEPRECATED & ~E_STRICT & E_WARNING);

Step 7: Apache configuration.

Before configuring Apache, let’s obtain an SSL certificate from “Let’s Encrypt” using certbot:

apt install -y certbot
certbot certonly --webroot --agree-tos -m youremail@domain.tld -d crm.example.net

When prompted to input the webroot for your domain, type in /var/www/html. Certbot will verify that you own your domain and that it correctly resolves to your server’s IP address before creating and saving your certificate and key file.

To keep things organized, create two configurations files for your VtigerCRM instance, vtigercrm80.conf and vtigercrm443.conf for HTTP and HTTPS, respectively. Both files should be created in /etc/apache2/sites-available.

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/vtigercrm80.conf

And paste the following, which will instruct Apache to redirect all incoming HTTP requests to HTTPS :

<VirtualHost *:80>

  DocumentRoot /var/www/vtigercrm
  ServerName crm.example.net

  ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/vtigercrm-error.log
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/vtigercrm-access.log common

  RewriteEngine on
  RewriteCond %{SERVER_NAME} =crm.example.net
  RewriteRule ^ https://%{SERVER_NAME}%{REQUEST_URI} [END,QSA,R=permanent]

</VirtualHost>

For the HTTPS version:

nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/vtigercrm443.conf

Below is a sensible configuration that you can tweak if you have more specific needs:

<VirtualHost *:443> 

  DocumentRoot /var/www/vtigercrm
  ServerName crm.example.net

  SSLEngine on
  SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/crm.example.net/fullchain.pem
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/crm.example.net/privkey.pem
  SSLProtocol all -SSLv2 -SSLv3
  SSLCipherSuite ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES128-GCM-SHA256:kEDH+AESGCM:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-SHA:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA:DHE-DSS-AES128-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA256:DHE-DSS-AES256-SHA:DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES128-GCM-SHA256:AES256-GCM-SHA384:AES128-SHA256:AES256-SHA256:AES128-SHA:AES256-SHA:AES:CAMELLIA:DES-CBC3-SHA:!aNULL:!eNULL:!EXPORT:!DES:!RC4:!MD5:!PSK:!aECDH:!EDH-DSS-DES-CBC3-SHA:!EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA:!KRB5-DES-CBC3-SHA
  SSLHonorCipherOrder on
  SSLCompression off
  SSLOptions +StrictRequire

  <Directory /var/www/vtigercrm>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>

  ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/vtigercrm-error.log
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/vtigercrm-access.log common

</VirtualHost>

Enable both virtual host files:

a2ensite vtigercrm80.conf
a2ensite vtigercrm443.conf

And enable the rewrite and SSL apache modules:

a2enmod rewrite
a2enmod ssl

Finally, restart the apache service to apply changes:

systemctl restart apache2.service

Step 8: Web Installation Wizard

Navigate to https://crm.example.net/, you’ll be greeted with the installation wizard. Click “Install” to begin, and follow these steps:

1. First, you’ll have to agree to the Vtiger Public License before proceeding.

2. The wizard will check your PHP configuration. All tests should pass if you followed this guide. Click “Next”

3. You’ll be asked to enter your database information:

Host Name: localhost
User Name: vtigercrm
Password: The password you chose during user creation in the MySQL console.
Database Name: vtigercrm
Create new database: Yes. (Check the checkbox. Even though we already create a database, this currently is required in order for the installer to create all tables.)
Root User Name: vtigercrm
Root Password: The password you chose during user (vtigercrm) creation in the MySQL console. Do not enter the password for the root user.

The system information and admin user information forms should be filled according to your requirements.

4. Confirm your configuration and proceed.

5. Specify your industry and click “Next”. The wizard will begin the setup process, which may take some time.

6. Select the features you’d like to enable. The installation process is now complete.

How to Install PmWiki on Debian 10 / Nginx / PHP-FPM

Posted on September 19, 2019 - September 20, 2019 by nxnjz

Introduction

PmWiki is an open-source wiki-based content management system built in PHP that was started in 2002, and is designed for collaborative creation and maintenance of websites. It allows quick editing as well as appearance changes using skins and templates. PmWiki also provides flexible password-based access control. This guide will explain the installation of PmWiki on a Debian 10 system with Nginx and PHP-FPM.

Prerequisites

A Debian 10 system.
Root user access to your server via SSH.
Optional: A registered domain name and valid SSL certificate.

NOTE: All occurences of example.com should be replaced with your IP address or with a domain name pointing to that IP.

Installation

Step 1: Update your system

Update your system packages:

apt update 
apt upgrade -y
reboot

Step 2: Install Nginx and PHP

apt install -y nginx php7.3-fpm

Verify that PHP-FPM and the Nginx server are enabled and running:

systemctl enable --now nginx.service php7.3-fpm.service

Step 3: Download and unpack PmWiki

You can download the latest stable release of PmWiki with the following command:

wget http://www.pmwiki.org/pub/pmwiki/pmwiki-latest.tgz

Then unpack the tar archive:

tar -xzf pmwiki-latest.tgz
rm pmwiki-latest.tgz

Now move the pmwiki directory to /var/www/html:

mv pmwiki*/ /var/www/html/pmwiki

Step 4: Nginx configuration:

Create a new virtual host file pmwiki80.conf under /etc/nginx/sites-available/ using a text editor of your choice, such as vim or nano, and paste the following configuration (replace example.com with the IP address of your server, or with your domain name if you’re using one):

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name example.com;
    root /var/www/html/pmwiki;
index index.php;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.3-fpm.sock;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
    }
}

Note that this is a very basic Nginx configuration file, further configuration may be necessary depending on your specific requirements.
Save and close the file, then create a symbolic link pointing to it in the sites-enabled directory:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pmwiki80.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

You can now reload the Nginx service to apply those changes:

systemctl reload nginx.service

Step 5: PmWiki Installation

PmWiki needs to have write access in a wiki.d directory:

cd /var/www/html/pmwiki
mkdir wiki.d
chown www-data:www-data wiki.d

Since there is no index.php file by default, we will create it:

echo "<?php include_once('pmwiki.php');" > /var/www/html/pmwiki/index.php

Using a web browser, nagivate to http://example.com/. You should see the default PmWiki homepage if you followed the previous steps correctly. We’ll now customize the installation:

Make sure your current working directory is /var/www/html/pmwiki and copy the sample configuration file for editing:

cd /var/www/html/pmwiki
cp docs/sample-config.php local/config.php
vim local/config.php

We’ll now make the following changes:

$WikiTitle = 'Pmwiki'; to $WikiTitle = 'YourWikiTitle';
#$ScriptUrl = 'http://example.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php'; to $ScriptUrl = 'http://example.com/';
#$PubDirUrl = 'http://example.com/pmwiki/pub'; to $PubDirUrl = 'http://example.com/pub';
Uncomment the following line: #$PageLogoUrl = "$PubDirUrl/skins/pmwiki/pmwiki-32.gif"; and optionally enter the path to a custom logo of your own.
# $DefaultPasswords['admin'] = pmcrypt('secret'); to $DefaultPasswords['admin'] = pmcrypt('StrongPasswordHere'); (This sets a site-wide default administrative password).
Optional: If you want to allow browser caching, uncomment the following line: # $EnableIMSCaching = 1;.

The other default parameters and values should be reviewed and modified according to your specific needs. Also, all URL schemas should be changed to https:// if you choose to use HTTPS.

Step 6: Nginx HTTPS config

Assuming you have a domain name and a corresponding SSL certificate, you can setup HTTPS:

First create a new configuration file with a text editor of your choice:

vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/pmwiki443.conf

Paste or type the following:

server {
    listen 443;
    listen [::]:443;
    server_name 192.168.2.28;
    root /var/www/html/pmwiki;
    index index.php;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;

    }

    ssl on;
    ssl_certificate /path/to/your/cert.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /path/to/your/key.pem;
}

Enable it and reload the nginx service to apply these changes:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/pmwiki443.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
systemctl reload nginx.service

The HTTPS version of your site is now ready. If you wish to permanently redirect all traffic to the secure version, open /etc/nginx/sites-available/pmwiki80.conf in a text editor and add the following line after the server_name directive:

return 301 https://example.com$request_uri

Save and exit, then reload Nginx again:

systemctl reload nginx.service

Finally, re-edit /var/www/html/pmwiki/local/config.php and change the URL schema in all applicable values from http to https.

You should now be able to access PmWiki at https://example.com/.

How to Install Postmill on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS with Apache or Nginx

Posted on September 16, 2019 - September 19, 2019 by nxnjz

Introduction

Postmill is a free and open-source web-based social link aggregator with voting and nested comments, similar to the popular Reddit platform. This article will explain the full installation process on a Vultr Ubuntu 18.04 LTS system, including the setup of Nginx and Apache as replacements for the Symfony web server.

Requirements

A Ubuntu 18.04 instance (2GB+ of physical memory recommended)
Access to a user with sudo privileges, we’ll assume this user is user1 in the rest of this guide.

Swap file

If your system has less than 2 gigabytes of memory, you may run into memory allocation errors during the installation process. We’ll create a 4GB swap file to avoid such issues, but keep in mind that swap space performs very poorly in comparison to physical memory.

 sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap bs=1k count=4M
sudo chmod 0600 /swap
sudo mkswap /swap
sudo swapon /swap
echo "/swap swap swap defaults 0 0" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

Installation

Preparing the system

First, we’ll update the system and install a few needed packages.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y curl apt-transport-https

Then we’ll install package repositories for Node.js and yarn, in order to get the needed package versions.

curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list
curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo bash -

And install the needed packages (which consists of php libraries, the PostgreSQL database server and client, Node.js and other tools.)

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nodejs yarn php php-curl php-gd php-common php-intl php-mbstring php-xml php-json php-pgsql postgresql postgresql-client php-zip unzip php-symfony-polyfill-intl-icu

Downloading Postmill and building its components

Clone the postmill gitlab repository to /var/www/, and give yourself ownership of the resulting directory:

sudo mkdir /var/www
cd /var/www
sudo git clone https://gitlab.com/postmill/Postmill.git
sudo chown -R user1:user1 Postmill/
cd Postmill

Keep in mind that the rest of this guide assumes your working directory is /var/www/Postmill/.
Then, install composer (a tool for managing PHP dependencies) in the current directory:

php -r "copy('https://getcomposer.org/installer', 'composer-setup.php');"
php composer-setup.php

And build the frontend assets with the following commands:

yarn install
yarn run build-prod

Using composer, we will now download and setup the PHP dependencies of Postmill.

php composer.phar install

Database Setup

Postmill requires access to a postgresql database. Create a new PostgreSQL user:

sudo -u postgres createuser --pwprompt postmill

You will be asked to enter a password for the new user, make sure you choose a secure and unique password. We’ll now create a database named ‘postmill’, owned by the user ‘postmill’.

sudo -u postgres createdb -O postmill postmill

Postmill Configuration

Copy the default configuration file .env to .env.local(cp .env .env.local). Changes will be made in the latter to override default values. Open .env.local in a text editor of your choice, and find the following line:

DATABASE_URL=pgsql://db_user:db_password@localhost:5432/db_name?serverVersion=9.6

Replace db_user and db_name with postmill; db_password with the password chosen during user creation in the previous step; and 9.6 with your currently installed version. You can run the following PostgreSQL query to determine which version is installed on your system:

sudo -u postgres psql postgres -c 'SELECT version()' | grep PostgreSQL | cut -d' ' -f3

The database URL should now look like the following:

DATABASE_URL=pgsql://postmill:thisisastrongpassword@localhost:5432/postmill?serverVersion=10.9

You’ll also need to provide a secret string (on line 23 of the same file) such as:

 APP_SECRET="Df4wgdwrt4PQv9AUMmLkempHTMmULG6a3kwa5nQj"

Do Not use the value provided in this article. You can use the following command to generate a random 40-character string instead:

 cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'a-zA-Z0-9' | fold -w 40 | head -1

We can now close that file, and we’ll make sure that the environment meets the necessary requirements:

vendor/bin/requirements-checker

You should fix any issues that arise from this check before proceeding with the installation.

Now run bin/console doctrine:migrations:migrate to load the database schema, followed by bin/console app:user:add admin1 --admin to create a default administrator account named ‘admin1’. You can choose any other username for this account, you can also create more than one administrator.

At this point, the postmill installation is complete. Further instructions are provided separately for develeopment and production instances.

Development Instances (Symfony web server)

For developing and testing Postmill, the symfony local web server is sufficient. It can be started by running bin/console server:run. By default, symfony will listen on localhost, port 8000/tcp. To access it, SSH port forwarding is recommended. You can read more about SSH port forwarding here.

Production Deployment

When running Postmill in a production environment, you’ll need to use either Apache or Nginx, trying to install both web servers on the same system will not work. Software-specific instructions are provided in subsequent sections.

Open the file we previously created (.env.local) in a text editor and change APP_ENV=dev to APP_ENV=prod. Or use sed to make that change: sed -i "s/APP_ENV=dev/APP_ENV=prod/" .env.local

Apache with mod_php

First, install Apache and make sure it is enabled and running:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y apache2
sudo systemctl enable --now apache2.service

Then install the symfony pack for Apache support:

php composer.phar require symfony/apache-pack

Create a new Apache configuration file under /etc/apache2/sites-available/ with a text editor of your choice. For example:

 sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/postmill80.conf

And populate it with the following basic configuration (replace example.com with your domain name or IP address):

<VirtualHost *:80>

ServerName example.com
DocumentRoot /var/www/Postmill/public

<Directory /var/www/Postmill/public>
AllowOverride All
Order Allow,Deny
Allow from All
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/Postmill>
Options FollowSymlinks
</Directory>

ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/postmill_error.log
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/postmill_access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Then enable this configuration: sudo a2ensite postmill80.conf
Some apache modules need to be enabled/disabled:

sudo a2dismod mpm_event
sudo a2enmod rewrite
sudo a2enmod php7.2

Finally, restart the apache service to apply the changes: sudo systemctl restart apache2.service

You should now be able to access your postmill installation by browsing to the domain name or IP address of your Vultr server.

Nginx with PHP-FPM

Start by installing the PHP FastCGI process manager and Nginx, and make sure both services are enabled and running:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y nginx php-fpm
sudo systemctl enable --now nginx.service php7.2-fpm.service

Create a new configuration file in /etc/nginx/sites-available/ with a text editor of your choice. For example:

 sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/postmill80.conf

And enter the following minimal configuration (replace example.com with your domain name or IP address):

server {
server_name example.com;
root /var/www/Postmill/public;

location / {
try_files $uri /index.php$is_args$args;
}

location ~ ^/index\.php(/|$) {
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.*)$;
include fastcgi_params;

fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $realpath_root$fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $realpath_root;
internal;
}

location ~ \.php$ {
return 404;
}

error_log /var/log/nginx/postmill_error.log;
access_log /var/log/nginx/postmill_access.log;
}

We now need to enable it by creating a link in the ‘sites-enabled’ directory, and reload the Nginx service to apply the new configuration:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/postmill80.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

You should now be able to access your postmill installation by browsing to the domain name or IP address of your Vultr server.

Common problems

PostgreSQL errors such as [An exception occurred in driver: SQLSTATE[08006] [7] FATAL: password authentication failed for user "postmill"] are often caused by an incorrect database URL in the postmill configuration file (.env.local). Make sure you created a database and its respective user as shown in the postmill configuration section of this guide.

How to Install WallaBag on Debian 9.

Posted on March 11, 2019 - November 21, 2019 by nxnjz

Introduction

Wallabag is a self-hosted PHP web application allowing you to save web pages for later reading. It extracts content so that you can read it when you have time. This article will explain the installation of Wallabag on a Debian 9 system.

Prerequisites

A Debian 9 installation.
Root access to your server (via a user with sudo privileges.)
A web server with PHP (Instructions below.)
A MySQL database (Instructions below.)

Preparations

Update your system and install required software.

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install -y git make composer

Git will be used to download Wallabag from its github repository and composer, via the make command, to install PHP libraries.

Installing a web server stack:

We will be using Apache with PHP, and MariaDB for the database. Execute the following to install the required packages:

sudo apt install -y apache2 php php-common php-xml php-mbstring php-mysql php-json php-pdo php-gd php-tidy php-curl php-bcmath php-zip mariadb-server mariadb-client

Make sure Apache and MariaDB are enabled and running:

sudo systemctl enable --now apache2.service mariadb.service

Configuring Apache

Using a text editor of your choice, create a new Apache configuration file. For instance:

sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/wallabag.conf

Populate it with the following (insert your Vultr IP address or a domain name pointing to your IP for ServerName):

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName IP_or_DOMAIN_NAME 
    DocumentRoot /var/www/wallabag/web
    <Directory /var/www/wallabag/web>
        AllowOverride None
        Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from All
        <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
            Options -MultiViews
            RewriteEngine On
            RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
            RewriteRule ^(.*)$ app.php [QSA,L]
        </IfModule>
    </Directory>
 <Directory /var/www/wallabag/web/bundles>
        <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
            RewriteEngine Off
        </IfModule>
    </Directory>
    ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/wallabag_error.log
    CustomLog /var/log/apache2/wallabag_access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Save, exit, and enable this virtual host:

sudo a2ensite wallabag.conf

Enable the rewrite apache module:

sudo a2enmod rewrite

Restart Apache to apply changes:

sudo systemctl restart apache2.service

Configuring MariaDB

Start by securing your MySQL installation with this command:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Answer the questions as shown:

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Enter
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
New password: <your-password>
Re-enter new password: <your-password>
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y

Make sure you use a strong password.

Configuring MariaDB

Create a database and user for Wallabag:

sudo mysql -u root -p

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE wallabag; 
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'wallabaguser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'wallabagpassword';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON wallabag.* TO 'wallabaguser'@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> exit;

Make sure you replace wallabagpassword with a secure password. It should be different from the password you chose for the MariaDB root user.

Installing Wallabag

Since Wallabag is hosted on github, we’ll clone the repository locally:

cd /var/www/
sudo git clone https://github.com/wallabag/wallabag.git

And transfer ownership to the apache user:

sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/wallabag

It is not recommended to run the installation scripts as root, so we will use the apache user:

sudo -u www-data /bin/bash
cd /var/www/wallabag/
make install

You will be asked several questions regarding desired configuration:

database_driver (pdo_mysql): pdo_mysql
database_driver_class (null): Press Enter
database_host (127.0.0.1): 127.0.0.1
database_port (null): 3306
database_name (wallabag): wallabag
database_user (root): wallabaguser
database_password (null): wallabagpassword
database_path (null): Press Enter
database_table_prefix (wallabag_): Prefix of your choice or Press Enter for the default.
database_socket (null): Press Enter
database_charset (utf8mb4): Press Enter
domain_name ('https://your-wallabag-url-instance.com'): http://IP_or_DOMAIN_NAME

Choose the default (press Enter) for the remaining questions.

You should now be able to access Wallabag on http://IP_or_DOMAIN_NAME. For better security/privacy, you should consider using a domain name with HTTPS, however this is beyond the scope of this guide.

How to Install PrivateBin on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Posted on March 11, 2019 - November 21, 2019 by nxnjz

Introduction

PrivateBin is a minimalist online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data. This application supports password-protection, expiration, and self-destruction after reading. It is completely open-source and hosted on github. This article will guide through the installation and configuration of PrivateBin on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.

Prerequisites

A Ubuntu 18.04 system.
Root access to your server (via the root user or a user with sudo privileges.)
A web server with PHP (Instructions below.)
A MySQL database (Instructions below.)

Preparations

If you’re not logged in as the root user, execute sudo -i to obtain a temporary root shell.

Update your system and install required software.

apt update
apt upgrade -y
apt install -y git

Git will be used to download PrivateBin from its github repository.

Installing a web server stack:

We will be using Apache and PHP. Execute the following to install the required packages:

apt update
apt install -y apache2 php7.2 php7.2-xml php7.2-mbstring php7.2-mysql php7.2-json php7.2-pdo

Make sure Apache is enabled and running:

systemctl enable --now apache2.service

Configuring Apache

Using a text editor of your choice, create a new configuration file for Apache. For instance:

vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/privatebin.conf

Populate it with the following (insert your IP address or a domain name pointing to your IP for ServerName):

<VirtualHost *:80>
       ServerName YOUR_SERVER_IP
       DocumentRoot /var/www/html/PrivateBin/
       ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/privatebin-error.log
       CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/privatebin-access.log combined
    <Directory /var/www/html/PrivateBin>
    AllowOverride All
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Save, exit, and enable this virtual host:

a2ensite privatebin.conf

Reload the configuration:

systemctl reload apache2.service

Installing PrivateBin

Since PrivateBin is hosted on github, we’ll clone the repository locally:

cd /var/www/html/ && git clone https://github.com/PrivateBin/PrivateBin.git

And give the Apache user ownership of the PrivateBin directory:

chown -R www-data:www-data PrivateBin/

You should now be able to access PrivateBin on http://YOUR_SERVER_IP. For better security/privacy, you should consider using a domain name with HTTPS, however this is beyond the scope of this guide.

Optional

PrivateBin supports MySQL storage in place of the default file-based storage model. To implement MySQL storage, follow the steps below.

Installing MariaDB

apt install -y mariadb-server mariadb-client 

systemctl enable --now mariadb.service

Secure your MySQL installation with this command:

mysql_secure_installation

Answer the questions as follows:

Enter current password for root (enter for none): Enter
Set root password? [Y/n]: Y
New password: <your-password>
Re-enter new password: <your-password>
Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]: Y
Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]: Y
Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]: Y
Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]: Y

Make sure you use a strong password.

Configuring MariaDB

Create a database and user for PrivateBin:

mysql -u root -p

MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE DATABASE privatebin DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
MariaDB [(none)]> CREATE USER 'privatebin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'newpassword';
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON privatebin.* TO 'privatebin'@'localhost';
MariaDB [(none)]> exit;

Make sure you replace newpassword with a secure password. It should be different from the password you chose for the MariaDB root user.

Changing Storage Mode

First, copy the default configuration file for editing:

cd /var/www/html/PrivateBin/cfg
cp conf.sample.php conf.php

Using a text editor of your choice, open the file conf.php. Find the following segment:

[model]
; name of data model class to load and directory for storage
; the default model "Filesystem" stores everything in the filesystem
class = Filesystem
[model_options]
dir = PATH "data"

;[model]
; example of DB configuration for MySQL
;class = Database
;[model_options]
;dsn = "mysql:host=localhost;dbname=privatebin;charset=UTF8"
;tbl = "privatebin_"    ; table prefix
;usr = "privatebin"
;pwd = "Z3r0P4ss"
;opt[12] = true      ; PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT

And replace it with:

; [model]
; name of data model class to load and directory for storage
; the default model "Filesystem" stores everything in the filesystem
; class = Filesystem
; [model_options]
; dir = PATH "data"

[model]
class = Database
[model_options]
dsn = "mysql:host=localhost;dbname=privatebin;charset=UTF8"
tbl = "privatebin_"    ; table prefix
usr = "privatebin"
pwd = "newpassword"
opt[12] = true      ; PDO::ATTR_PERSISTENT

Again, make sure you replace newpassword with the password chosen during user creation in the MySQL console, then save and exit.

Restart apache:

systemctl restart apache2.service